Monday, April 04, 2005

Novak on Bush and Congress

A senior Republican senator who avoids the headlines and tries to help President Bush as much as possible was discussing with me two weeks ago the problems of seeking Social Security reform. Then he said something that surprised me: "I have been around awhile, and this is the worst administration at congressional relations that I have ever been associated with."Part of the confict is Bush's effort to control the alliance of Congress, Contractors, and Agency bureaucrats, and impose some rational management on the Federal government. Witness the hold Sen Lott's placed on Bush's choice of his former Sec VA Tony Principi to head the base closings commission.

It's tough to spend and manage rationally when Senators talk like this,

In February, he [Lott] told The Associated Press, "I will try to stop it [BRAC] at any point and in any way I possibly can." He says the United States should not be closing domestic bases while its troops are waging war abroad.